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Commerce in the Community: Paramount Pictures Works with Local Partners to Promote Opportunity Through High-Impact Education and Mentorship Programs.

Frederick Huntsberry - Commerce in the Community

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Commerce in the Community series highlighting the work of community leaders and organizations that are strengthening the middle class and providing ladders of opportunity for all Americans.

Below is an interview Frederick Huntsberry, the Chief Operating Officer of Paramount Pictures, a position he has served in since 2006. Mr. Huntsberry started his career in entertainment in 1997 at Universal Studios and later NBC Universal where he held various positions in Finance and Business Development, as well as President, NBC Universal Television Distribution where he was responsible for all U.S. first-run syndication and domestic and international television distribution sales activities. His last position was President, NBC Universal International, where he provided strategic direction for new business development growth opportunities, as well operational oversight for international TV distribution and global networks.

Question 1: Tell us about your team at Paramount. What is your mission and main focus?

As Chief Operating Officer at Paramount Pictures, I oversee worldwide strategic planning and operations for the studio. Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Viacom, is a producer and distributor of feature films that have entertained audiences around the world for over 100 years. In addition, last year we announced the formation of Paramount Television which focuses on the production of made for television and digital content. We are proud of the content we create, but we’re equally inspired by the tremendous volunteer spirit of our company and employees.

Our corporate responsibility initiatives focus on four elements: education, fighting HIV/AIDS, the environment and volunteerism. We’ve found that by prioritizing our efforts, we can have a more meaningful impact. In 2013 alone, our employees volunteered over 3,100 hours in giving-back projects – mostly in Los Angeles, but also across the U.S. and abroad where we have international offices. Paramount’s Community and Government Relations Group works closely with its counterparts at Viacom to create and implement corporate social responsibility programs for our employees that will leave a lasting impact on surrounding neighborhoods, public schools and non-profit organizations. 

Question 2: What is the Kindergarten to Cap and Gown Program, and what role has Paramount played in it?

In 2009, Viacom partnered with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to form Get Schooled, a non-profit program that motivates American students to graduate from high school and succeed in college by using media, technology and popular culture. Viacom and Get Schooled have sponsored middle school and high school attendance competitions across the nation and schools with the best attendance records are rewarded by having celebrities or well-known directors/producers visit with the students. Since its inception, more than 3 million students have participated in Get Schooled. 

As Viacom’s Get Schooled initiative motivates students to become engaged in their school communities and improve their attendance rates, we at Paramount decided to implement a program locally that would mirror the goals of Get Schooled nationally.

Kindergarten to Cap & Gown is Paramount's signature education program that supports students through their academic careers, targeting three schools in Paramount's Hollywood neighborhood that are feeder schools to each other, thus allowing Paramount to shepherd students from kindergarten to high school graduation:

  • Santa Monica Blvd. Community Charter Elementary School
  • Le Conte Middle School
  • Helen Bernstein High School

Students from Santa Monica Blvd elementary will transition to Le Conte Middle School, and those students will transition to Bernstein High School. Our intent is to follow a student through their educational experience, with the ultimate goal of the student graduating high school and being academically prepared for college.

At the elementary school level, our focus is on literacy, pairing employee volunteers one-on-one with students to practice reading, spelling and phonics on a biweekly basis. Additionally, through our Friday Readers program, employee volunteers read aloud to K-3 classrooms each week.

At the middle school level, employees and students meet for a monthly team mentoring program aimed at increasing school attendance, boosting self-confidence and ultimately combating negative peer influences that often arise in early adolescence.

At the high school level, employees are paired with a local teen for both group and one-on-one, bi-monthly mentoring sessions. The 2013-14 school year saw the third "class" of Kindergarten to Cap & Gown students graduate from high school. We’re pleased that of the high school students who have participated in our mentoring program, 90% have graduated high school.

It is also worth noting that since launching Kindergarten to Cap & Gown, nearly 20% of our Los Angeles based employees have participated in at least one of our mentoring programs, many participating multiple years and among a variety of programs.

Question 3: How is your team partnering with others to expand the impact and the reach of this program?

Kindergarten to Cap & Gown assists students in the Hollywood neighborhood, where Paramount’s studio lot is located. The U.S. Department of Education recently designated a portion of Hollywood as a “Promise Neighborhood” -- a community faced with significant poverty and related social challenges. The goal of a Promise Neighborhood is to transform the community into one of opportunity and educational excellence, through public-private partnerships.

We feel that Viacom’s and Paramount’s corporate commitment to education and mentoring programs, combined with the investment of President Obama’s signature education and poverty enterprise, the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, provides a great opportunity to share our program with other businesses and community organizations -- expanding its reach in a meaningful way. Partnering with local, experienced non-profits including Koreh L.A. and Youth Mentoring Connection (YMC) to help facilitate our program provides an added level of support, enabling our employees to work with experts in the field and creating a model which other businesses can replicate.

Question 4: From your experience, what advice do you have for businesses looking to get involved in cross-sector community improvement efforts like the Kindergarten to Cap and Gown Program?

Finding the right non-profit partners has been a key to our program's success. Both Koreh LA and Youth Mentoring Connection understand our corporate culture and goals for our employees' engagement. They were able to adapt their program format to our needs, while continuing to provide the experienced oversight required.

For a program such as Kindergarten to Cap & Gown to succeed, it also needs to appeal to a diverse audience within the company. That includes support from business leadership. At Paramount Pictures, 25% of our participants are at a senior executive level or higher. The program has a nearly even split of male and female mentors and we have mentors who are new to the company, as well as those employees who’ve been with us for a much longer time. I’ve personally participated in the program as a mentor and have encouraged my direct reports to not only support their employees’ participation, but to become mentors themselves.

I think other businesses will find giving back programs, such as Kindergarten to Cap & Gown, to be a benefit in multiple ways: we’ve discovered our employees (and future hires) are proud to work for a company that places high value on volunteerism; we can make a real difference in our surrounding communities, which gives a company a genuine sense of accomplishment; and, it fosters expanded teamwork, as it provides an opportunity for employees across various divisions to volunteer alongside colleagues they might not otherwise work with.

Question 5: If people want to learn more about Viacom and the Kindergarten to Cap and Gown Program, what should they do?

The Paramount Pictures website (http://www.paramount.com/giving-back) details all of our Giving Back initiatives. I was also very pleased when Viacom chose to highlight the Kindergarten to Cap & Gown program in its annual corporate social responsibility report (http://www.viacommunityreport.com/) and on its social responsibility website (http://www.viacommunity.com). Lastly, I encourage people to talk with one of the more than two hundred Paramount employees who have participated in Kindergarten to Cap & Gown since its inception in 2009. Like me, many of our employees have been there to watch their mentee graduate high school, after overcoming significant social and academic challenges. I’m proud to be associated with Paramount and Viacom, which actively support this level of community outreach and involvement.

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